In the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) radio access technology, relaying is a technique of extending a coverage area of a cell of a cellular network. Here, instead of establishing a direct connection with an access node of the wireless network, a communication device (UE) connects with a relay which wirelessly forwards or relays data to the access node of the cellular network. Such a scenario is typically referred to cell-edge extension, because the UE is able to connect to the relay albeit located outside the range of the access node; hence, in such a scenario, a direct channel of the radio interface of the cellular network between the UE and the access node is not available.
However, such techniques face certain restrictions. E.g., it is not possible or only possible to a limited degree to flexibly select between direct communication with the cellular network and relaying connection with the cellular network in different scenarios and use cases. Relaying is limited to the cell-edge extension scenario as explained above.